


Break & Mend

by theroguesgambit



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: F/M, Fluff, Friendship, M/M, Malia friendly, but not really Stalia-friendly, civil breakup, discovering feelings, pre-Sterek - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-17
Updated: 2014-06-17
Packaged: 2018-02-05 02:45:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1802485
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theroguesgambit/pseuds/theroguesgambit
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Malia helps Stiles figure out his feelings for Derek.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Break & Mend

**Author's Note:**

> This is... I don't even know. I wanted to try reconciling the whole Stalia thing that's going to be shoved in our faces next week (because even though I'm perfectly fine with Malia, I really don't get Stalia) and this ended up happening. It's pro-Sterek, but not anti-Malia

Things are going really well for once. They’ve finally gotten Derek back, and no one died or got seriously injured in Mexico. Beacon Hills has been quiet, Stiles has officially been dating an awesome, cool, tough, superpowered (not to mention like way above his paygrade _hot_ ) girl for a month now… and even if she is Peter’s daughter, that’s no reason to hold something like that against her.

After all, Derek’s Peter’s nephew and that’s never stopped Stiles from…

…tentatively not loathing him.

But anyway, for once, things are going well.

Until Malia sits down at the other edge of a log during training one day and says “We shouldn’t be boyfriend-girlfriend anymore.”

She always calls them things like that: “boyfriend-girlfriend.” A little hint of her preteen vocabulary filtering through. Stiles thinks it’s adorable, loves the way she’s still such an excitable kid in some ways, the way she lights up at little things like how fast the internet moves and cell phone games and 3D movies and _gas prices_ of all things. Seriously, gas prices. One day Stiles stopped to fill up the jeep and her eyes had flown to the list of numbers over the pump, bouncing a little on her feet and pointing in that victorious way she does when she rediscovers something about the world.

“Wait, those are the prices? _Per gallon_?” And then she’d done her best to muffle her peels of laughter, shaking her head and calling everyone suckers for being willing to pay that much when her daddy had always paid less than half that “back in the day.”

Stiles had resolved to track down a gumball machine and let her have a fit about the fact that it was now seventy-five cents a gumball. Really, Malia had only been out of civilization seven years, but hanging out with her sometimes feels like exploring the town with a time-traveling pioneer. She makes things new and bright and exciting again, and after the hell of the Nogitsune, of Mexico, of… well, basically everything in Stiles’ life for the past year, that’s exactly what he needs.

Malia shifts, glancing down at her hands awkwardly, and Stiles realizes he’s been staring.

“Wait, are you serious? Are you…”

He falters, glances out at the field ahead of them. Scott’s leading Derek through a series of exercises… or maybe Derek’s leading Scott; he’s not really sure who’s in charge there. These afternoons in the preserve are as much about the two wolves – the born wolf and the made, the former and true alphas – figuring out how to work together, as they are about Derek getting his strength back up after his two-month imprisonment. They’re far off, busily occupied in a tussle that honestly looks more like two pups tackling each other in a playpen than a serious battle.

It’s good to see Derek finally letting go like that, having fun. It’s good to see Scott being so comfortable around him.

It’s easier to think about his wolves wrestling like brothers than about the fact that his were-coyote girlfriend is almost definitely dumping him.

He takes a steadying breath and looks back at her.

“You’re breaking up with me?"

She shrugs, bobbing her head a little. Her hair falls down over her shoulder, veiling her face in a way that looks totally accidental but Stiles is sure she did on purpose. Is that a graceful wolf skill or just a girl thing?

“It feels like it’s about time, you know? I love hanging out with you, but I keep feeling like we need to stop. You know… before things _escalate._ ”

She says the world like it’s significant, and he can feel a blush rising up.

“Malia… I haven’t… I never…”

He’s never pushed her to do anything. …At least he doesn’t think he has. He definitely hasn’t been trying to. Crap, has he?

No, definitely not.

If anything, Malia’s always been the one pushing to get more physical; to extend their makeouts, to slide her hands further along his body, to get him to strip his shirt so she can find out what a grown up boy’s chest feels like…

And it’s things like that, exactly like that which have kept Stiles from pushing for more, from even _wanting_ to. Malia’s awesome, all kinds of “how the hell did I get so lucky that she’s actually looking my way” awesome. But she uses phrases like “boy-girl parties” and “grownup boy’s” _anything_ and Stiles has worked to convince himself that’s not really fair, it’s not her fault her vocabulary got stalled when she was ten. But that’s just a symptom of a bigger adjustment issue, and Stiles has never felt right about trying to move things faster when she got bumped out of society back when boys were still icky.

And it’s not totally like he’s been holding back for her sake. She’s hot (has he mentioned she’s _hot_?), and kissing is fun, but he’d just as happily sit her down on a couch and watch her eyes go big while taking in the glory that is _Avatar_ , or drag her to an amusement park and scream with her through the twistiest rollercoaster they can find.

She helped drag him out of his emotional hell after the Nogitsune, while he was killing himself trying to figure out what had happened to Derek, tearing himself apart because they _couldn’t_ lose anyone else, he wouldn’t let them. Her lightness and enthusiasm had helped him hold on, remember who he’d been before.

The last thing he wanted was to lose her because she felt tense or uncomfortable or pressured.

“You know I wasn’t trying to get things to… escalate,” he says finally, and now he feels like the younger one, struggling for words that don’t sound too pointed or too immature.

She pushes her hair back slowly, quirks a sideways brow at him.

“I know.”

Oh, ok then.

…But then…

“It's just…he’s my cousin, you know? I just think it’d be better for everyone if those feelings get sorted out, before we reach some kind of point of no return.”

She’s making less sense by the second. Because he’s her… who’s her…

Wait. _Derek’s_ her…

“Whoa, wow. _Wait_. Oh my god, you’re interested in your _cousin_?”

He hears his voice squeak at the end, side-eyes the field and sees that, luckily, Derek and Scott seem too busy to listen, engaged in a mini-debate that, by their gestures, looks to be a complex battle strategy involving leaping into the treetops like monkey people.

Scott’s grinning. Derek rolls his eyes, stripping off his shirt and wiping a sheen of sweat from his forehead before tossing it straight at Scott’s face. The alpha catches it, looking smug, and tosses it so it catches in a high branch instead.

They both crouch, Scott counts to three, and then they’re leaping, scrambling up the trunk, both trying to reach the shirt first. A good, old-fashioned, werewolf powered, tree-climbing game of capture the flag.

And Derek’s shirtless, looking way too casually attractive even with his insane muscle mass toned down from his long confinement, and Malia… Malia needs to sort out _feelings_?

Stiles feels himself flush, his eyes tracking Derek’s movements before he forces his gaze to drop. Frustration, _jealousy_ , rippling through him.

Malia’s laughing, or maybe that’s what sputtering incoherently sounds like on her. Of course even her sputtering would be light and tinkling and graceful.

Because werewolves are all graceful and way too attractive, and Stiles is starting to seriously wonder if it’s just a supernatural creature bonus to be unfairly gorgeous, like being super hot is some kind of camouflage so no one suspects that they go all furry and blood-happy when the mood strikes.

So… well, who could blame Malia for thinking Derek’s hot, because _look_ at him. And it’s not like they grew up knowing each other or having a chance to develop a cousinly bond. And who knows what kind of weird pack dynamics werewolf families get involved in (and he’s not picturing it, not imagining it because _cousins_ ) but…

Then she’s smacking him, hard in the elbow.

“Don’t be gross, Stiles. I mean you.”

He blinks.

“Wait, if you think I’m hot then why are you breaking up with me?” And then, “ _Wait_ , we’re not cousins.”

She mimes gagging, smacks his arm again (he’s so gonna bruise; why can’t these werewolf people remember that not everyone’s mends as quickly as them?) and says evenly: “ _No_ , but the longer we date, the weirder it’ll be for you to ever date my cousin.”

He stares, feels a rush of heat that leaves him flushing again. Oh, how he loves his (ex?) girlfriend’s bluntness, but clearly, she’s misinterpreted something here.

“Um… do you mean Cora? Because Cora and I never…”

She levels him with a quirked eyebrow, a “don’t be an idiot, idiot” look that Stiles would swear she picked up direct from Lydia Martin.

“I hope not. It’d be weirder if you dated his sister.”

And now he’s definitely blushing, a hot, itchy flush rising up his neck.

In the distance, Scott’s made it to the shirt. Scott’s always been the more agile of the two, Derek more often relying on brute force, on circling and lurking before charging straight into things head-on. Stiles likes to think their fighting styles mirror their personalities.

...Malia thinks he likes Derek.

He clears his throat.

“Look, if you want to break up that’s totally fine, but Derek and I are a thing that’s definitely _not_ a thing. Never gonna happen. A ‘never gonna happen’ kind of a thing.”

“But you want it to?”

“I don’t…” Derek tackles Scott right out of the tree, both of them hitting the ground hard. When they roll back to their feet, Derek’s holding his shirt and smirking. It lights up his face, makes him seem younger, lighter. “No.”

“You ‘don’t, no’ or you don’t know?”

Derek’s tugging his shirt back on before Scott can make another grab for it. His eyes flit across the clearing, flicking to Malia, landing on Stiles. He tilts his head, this little pleased and cocky incline, like he’s glad he had an audience to his victory. Glad Stiles was watching.

He feels his lips twitch and ducks his head, heart pounding faster.

Malia’s whole crush theory is totally messing with his head.

“Malia, look, you’re still new around here. You kind of missed out on the whole first year of Stiles and Derek interactions.”

“Yeah, so I have an excuse for taking a while to figure it out. Plus there’s the whole ‘exiled from society for almost a decade’ thing. What’s your excuse?”

What’s his…

He looks up, and Derek’s eyes are still on him – not really confused or searching or upset like they would be if he was picking up any of this conversation. Just… watching. Like Stiles is something he enjoys looking at.

He glances back to Malia; she’s giving him a pointed look.

“Ok, that doesn’t mean anything. He does that sometimes, ok? He did that to, like, a hamburger.” Two months chained up in a grubby prison will make a guy appreciate little things like good food and your friends and all that mushy crap.

“He looked at the burger like that because _you_ bought it for him. You went all the way across town to get a burger from a place you saw a takeout bag from _once_ in his loft, and then drove back across town0 to give it to him.”

Stiles leans further down, elbows on his knees, fingers clenching behind his head.

“That was a welcome home… look, that doesn’t have to mean anything. Maybe I’m just nice.”

She sighs, and she’s definitely been hanging out with Lydia too much, because she’s wearing the same brand of no-nonsense insightfulness.

“You _are_ nice, and it doesn’t _have_ to mean anything. But it does.”

There’s a fluttering inside of him, like he’s losing something, like he’s hovering on the edge of a dangerous precipice.

And Derek’s standing at the bottom. And who the hell knows if Derek will even want to catch him?

He’s sitting next to his (ex? ex) girlfriend and thinking about falling into Derek’s waiting arms.

He glances up again, hoping to find something in Derek’s face, some clue about how to proceed. But he’s back to fighting Scott, ducking and clawing, diving and flipping. It’s smooth and graceful and powerful and Stiles wants to feel those muscles rippling under his hands, wants it in a sharp, visceral way he’s never felt with Malia.

Malia’s like… like a best friend. Her straightforwardness, her lightness saved him from the shadow of the Nogitsune, of Derek’s capture. But Derek…

His mouth’s dry from watching him, now that he feels like, maybe, he’s allowed to watch. He wants to cross that clearing and wrap his arms around Derek and never let him get kidnapped or beaten or tortured again.

He scrubs a hand over his face, eyes dry from staring.

“How did you get to be so smart?”

Malia snorts.

“I might not get high heels or movie references or high school algebra, but I do know some things. Like what it feels like to be lonely or scared. You know, to want something you’re afraid you’ll never get or don’t deserve. Like he does, like you do.” She smiles a little, shrugging. “So go to him.”

He shifts, like he’s going to do it right now, right in the middle of training, right in front of Scott and his ex-girlfriend. Which is twelve different kinds of ridiculous.

“You aren’t…”

“Stiles, I wouldn’t have said anything if I wasn’t ok.” And she shrugs again, grimacing a little. “And I think I need to be on my own for a bit. The whole jump from living in the woods…”

“As a were-coyote.”

She laughs.

“Yeah, as a coyote. I should probably get a better handle on the whole... being _human_ thing before I start… you know.”

His brows waggle.

“ _Escalating_?”

She hits him again, but this time it’s lighter; he doesn’t even wince. There, she's improving already.

“You’ve got to admit, this is kind of weird though.”

“Stiles, I was a coyote for seven years. Then my dad institutionalized me, and _then_ I found out he’s not even my dad, and my real dad’s some kind of zombie-werewolf. What in our lives isn’t weird?”

He smirks because... yeah, fair.

“And you’re…”

“If you ask me if I’m ok again, I will bite you.”

He swallows down the reflexive ‘threat or a promise?’ that tries to come out. It’ll take a while to get used to the whole not-dating thing. Redrawing lines, working out comfort levels. What they can say and do and can't.

“Ok, but are _we_ —”

“Hey, you keep paying for my movie tickets and we’ll be totally fine.” She pauses, then smirks pointedly. “You can even bring my cousin along.”

“Derek doesn’t really do movies.”

“I don’t know what you see in him.”

His thought-train traces back to a few minutes ago, and he mirrors her earlier grimace.

“Well, you’d better not. He’s your _cousin_.”

“Yeah, he is.”

She looks over at the pair of fighting wolves, face going soft and fond, and Stiles realizes why this was so important to her. Why it matters so much to make sure things are right between her and Stiles and Derek.

Just like Derek, she’d gone years without pack, without family. Isolating herself, wracked with guilt over her loved ones’ deaths, even if there’s no way it was really her fault. In a lot of ways, she and Derek were really cut from the same mold.

And now that he's being honest with himself, it's no wonder he’d been drawn to her in the first place.

“Ok, so… me and Derek.”

“You and Derek.” If there'd been any bitterness in her tone, he would have doubts. He’s still thinking about waiting, about giving it a few weeks at least to let the dust settle, because this is still on the edge of weird, because the last thing he wants to do is ruin anything for these two people who need family more than anything. (And because he's still not totally sure he's  _doing_ anything at all. Because it's _him_... because it's _Derek_...)

But then Malia's standing up, brushing off her jeans, shouting:

“Derek!” The wolves stop their mock-battle and glance over. Stiles feels a surge of panic (she _wouldn't_ ) and starts to scramble to his feet, but Malia’s already shouting “You, Stiles, that burger place tonight. Pick him up and dress nice, ok?”

Beautiful, blunt Malia. Every significant conversation with her is like ripping a band-aid off a particularly hairy arm. Stiles gapes at her, then at Derek, who’s glancing between them with an expression just as shocked.

Stiles feels like he can’t get any redder, and then Malia adds: “It’s a date.”

Because… blunt.

And Derek clears his throat a little, glances at Scott, who’s just grinning at the whole scene like the unhelpful jerk he is, and then meets Stiles eyes. He looks beyond startled, on that edge that crosses between nerves and full-on panic… and beneath it all, just maybe, a little hopeful.

Like he thinks maybe Malia’s joking. (Like maybe he hopes she isn’t?)

Stiles feels his shoulder shrug, forces a faint, tiny nod. It’s ridiculous. He feels like a middle schooler, having his friend ask out his crush for him.

Derek swallows, murmurs a word that can’t carry over the distance between them.

Scott beams and says, more loudly, “He says ok!”

That’s it, and then Derek's glancing down, scratching his neck, and Malia’s spinning and poking him and “oh my god, I knew he liked you,” and Stiles doesn’t even realize how wide he’s grinning until it starts hurting his cheeks.

Malia’s not the odd-one out here; they’re all _such_ middle schoolers.

They’ve all had to grow up too fast, and haven’t grown up enough. They’re jagged, unfinished edges of adult and child, and they don’t know how to do anything except stumble along and hope for the best as they go.

He loves Malia for reminding them that’s ok.

And he just... kind of loves Derek.

And in a world of werewolves and demons and berserkers, going out to get a burger with Derek Hale feels like one of the easiest and bravest things he's ever done.

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure about that ending, hope it's not too mushy but it seemed to fit. Let me know what you think.
> 
> [Come find me on Tumblr](http://halekingsourwolf.tumblr.com)


End file.
